Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/895

Rh sensation is lost while the power of movement remains, I know of no illustration. But the earlier experience of Ansel Bourne comes very near it. He was walking down a road and felt slightly dizzy; went and seated himself upon a stone. "In an instant. . . . it seemed as though some powerful hand drew something down over his head, and then over his face, and finally over his whole body; depriving him of his sight, his hearing, and his speech, and rendering him perfectly helpless. Yet he had as perfect power of thought as at any time in his life." In his case all was gone except touch and the power of voluntary movement with the exception of speech. The details of this classical case can be found in Dr. Richard Hodgson's article, in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. vii, page 221.

The converse, loss of movement without loss of sensation, is not uncommon; indeed, is probably only too common. A case is given by Alexander Crichton, M. D., in his work on Mental Derangement, vol. ii, page 87: "A young lady, an attendant upon the Princess of, after having been confined to her bed for a great length of time with a violent nervous disorder, was at last, to all appearance, deprived of life. Her lips were quite pale, her countenance resembled the countenance of a dead person, and her body grew cold. She was removed from the room in which she died, was laid in a coffin, and the day of her funeral was fixed upon. The day arrived, and, according to the custom of the country, funeral songs and hymns were sung before the door. Just as the people were about to nail on the lid of the coffin, a kind of perspiration was observed to appear on the surface of her body. It grew greater every moment, and at last a kind of convulsive motion was observed in the hands and feet of the corpse. A few minutes after, during which time fresh signs of returning life appeared, she at once opened her eyes and uttered a most pitiable shriek. Physicians were quickly procured, and in the course of a few days she was considerably restored and is probably alive at this day. The description which she herself gave of her situation is extremely remarkable, and forms a curious and authentic addition to psychology. She said it seemed to her, as if in a dream, that she was really dead; yet she was perfectly conscious of all that happened around her in this dreadful state. She distinctly heard her friends speaking and lamenting her death at the side of her coffin. She felt them pull on the dead-clothes and lay her in them. This feeling produced a mental anxiety which is indescribable. She tried to cry, but her soul was without power, and could not act upon her body. She had the contradictory feeling as if she were in her own body and yet not in it, at one and the same time. It was equally impossible for her to stretch out her arm or to open her eyes as to cry, although she continually